


The Odd Couple

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Attraction, Developing Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Movie(s), love isn't easy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3861007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's fast and she's weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I loved the "he's fast and she's weird" exchange between Maria and Steve in Age of Ultron - brisk, informative, and with a touch of droll. And then it occurred to me that, in a sense, that "he's fast and she's weird" could work for Steve and Maria, too.
> 
> A story in (at least) five parts. We'll see how merrily they roll along.

Sam invites her to come jogging one day, along the track that runs around the facility, through the open spaces of the property’s training grounds, and around the landing field. “Better than the treadmill,” he tells her.

“Maybe I don’t run,” Maria tells him, barely glancing up from her tablet and the latest list of proposed operations.

“Hey, I’ve seen you on the equipment, Hill.” He tilts his head, his expression turning slightly mournful. “Unless you’re avoiding me, in which case I’m gonna have hurt feelings.”

“And you think that’ll make me change my mind?”

“Ouch.” But there’s a smile in his voice. “Tomorrow, 0530, I’ll see you at the track, right? Right?”

Maria is there at 0530. Partly because he’s correct – it’s better than the treadmill – and partly because keeping track of the team is her job description these days. And Sam’s a pretty good weathervane: a team player with the emotional intelligence to see people problems before they become critical. It’s worth cultivating the relationship.

Plus, he’s good company while jogging.

She doesn’t realise Steve’s also on the circuit until there’s a call from behind, “On your left!”

They shuffle right as Steve jogs past them and turns on one toe, jogging backwards as fast as they're jogging forwards, sure-footed as a cat. “Didn’t know you’d joined us, Maria.”

“I joined Wilson,” she tells him.

“Really?”

Maria nearly smiles at the look he gives Sam – eyes narrowed, eyebrows raised. Sam just grins and shrugs. “I asked her.”

“Don’t let us hold you up,” Maria interrupts before Steve can say anything else. She doesn’t want or need the speculation, especially from him.

Steve’s smile turns rueful. “Keeping on stepping,” he says and turns around to continue on his way. And, yes, Maria watches that well-toned butt all the way up the slope, until he’s vanished around the corner and out of sight.

“Good view?”

Wilson’s smirk doesn’t diminish when she glares at him, so she shrugs, “Can’t complain.” Then she saves her breath for the slope. She needs to get out more – setting up the facility has been an effort, and ironing out all the little wrinkles has been taking time out from her usual regime.

Steve overtakes them twice more before they reach the end of the circuit, calling out both times as he passes.

“He does this to make me look bad,” Sam says as they watch him sprint off into the distance as they reach the final stretch. “Well, worse, I guess.”

Maria notes the singular with some amusment and some resignation, and wonders if she should run a check on Wilson’s psych profile again. Working with Captain America is not a job for a man with an inferiority complex, and although she wouldn’t have initially classed Sam Wilson as the kind to base his self-esteem on how he compares with another guy, a year of constant and steady interaction with the _ü_ _ber_ -man might make even the most confident man question his worth.

They get to the end of the course without being overtaken a fourth time, and Maria makes sure she takes the time to cool down. She’s not as young as she was when she first joined SHIELD and running after the Avengers all the time (cleaning up their mess, setting up their paperwork, handling the logistics) is an exhausting job.

Steve jogs up about ten minutes later. “We’re not going around again?”

“Man can only take so much of being shown up in front of the ladies,” Sam casts a sly glance Maria’s way.

“Didn’t they have to catheter you in Cologne last month, Wilson?” Maria asks then halts Steve’s muffled cough of laughter with a droll look. “And you were more bruise and contusion than skin and muscle after DC, Rogers.”

“Ouch.”

“What I’m saying is that it’s too late to worry about being seen at less than your best.”

“She doesn’t pull her punches does she?” Sam comments, his grin easy and rueful. “Straight for a guy’s weak spots.”

“Wilson, if you don’t want it bruised, you shouldn’t let it hang out there.” When Steve’s cough becomes a choke, Maria puts on her most coolly prim expression. “I’m talking about your _egos_ , guys.”

Steve grins at her, although he addresses Sam. “No, she doesn’t pull her punches.”

Maria leaves them to jostle each other while she does a quick walk to the end of the lane and back. It also gives her an opportunity to check her notifications of the day ahead, and the space to breathe and remind her pulse that Steve’s been smiling at a lot more people lately and it’s not just her.

Physiology’s a bitch, and it’s _not_ going to control her.

Still, it’s good to turn at the end of the lane and see the two men joking with each other, Sam poking Steve lightly in the chest and saying something that looks like it might be a warning or an injunction against something. _Hey, don’t get yourself in too deep._

She wonders if she should be worried about whatever it is they’re talking about.

Steve’s been...different lately. Easier with himself, less driven. A question he maybe didn’t even know he was asking has been answered since he faced Ultron.

Or, maybe more specifically, since Ms. Maximoff did a fear-whammy on him and the other Avengers.

Natasha gave her the rundown – or, at least, the rundown-lite, which is about as much as Maria could hope for from Nat, and rather more than she was expecting. Just as well that Nat was forthcoming, though, because getting anything out of the other Avengers would have been like trying to bleed stone.

Even if Banner wasn’t missing and Thor hadn’t gone back to Asgard, interrogating the Hulk or a Norse God has never been on Maria’s list of favourite things if she even _had_ a list of favourite things. And that leaves Barton, who’s had his head picked apart more than Maria cares to compound, Tony, which would only expose her to enough lighthearted quips and casually joking deflections to drive her to commit Stark-cide, and Steve.

Whatever reply Steve makes, Sam’s brows rise and his whole pose becomes one of disbelief. He asks another question and for some reason Steve glances her way, causing Sam to turn and look in her direction. She lifts her brows at them in query, and Sam gives her a quick, easy smile as he replies to Steve, who shrugs a little and says something back to Sam without taking his gaze off her.

If Steve’s embarking on something new...

She reminds herself that Sam is sensible, and that even if he wasn’t, Steve is grounded. He isn’t about to start collecting groupies, or taking excessive risks, or...whatever it is that super-soldiers do when they decide to change direction.

Moments like these, Maria wishes Peggy spent enough time lucid to answer her questions about Steve. There’s nobody else to ask – except, maybe Bucky Barnes, and even if he turned up on their doorstep, willing to co-operate after what HYDRA did to him, chances are getting answers out of him would be fraught. Still, it would be helpful to have a benchmark for whatever change is facing Steve Rogers, Captain America – even if that benchmark is Steve Rogers, little guy from Brooklyn.

Then again, Maria has never known the universe to be particularly helpful.

Her phone chimes a reminder that she’s used up her exercise time, and she starts back towards the guys.

“Hey, you got a breakfast meeting this morning?” Sam asks as she walks up. “If not, you could join us. Vision’s trying to cook. Apparently the part of him that was JARVIS was never allowed near Stark's kitchens. It gets...interesting.”

“I’ve got a busy day and I’d like to get a move on my work.”

“Lunch, then?” Maria notes Steve’s wince – a slight tightening around his eyes – but only gives Sam a very steady look which makes him shrug. “A guy can ask,” he defends. “And, I figure, we should make sure you get fed proper. Steve said you’re always skipping meals.”

She looks at Steve, slightly surprised that he’s noticed – that anyone has noticed. Sorting out Sokovia, _and_ the Avengers, _and_ the new facility has been just this side of insane. They’ve all been flat out, and Maria sometimes finds that getting lunch is secondary to simply getting the job done.

“Yes, you can look after yourself, Maria,” he says as though she’s demanded an answer of him. “That doesn’t mean we can’t help.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. She doesn’t know what to _do_ with that. But she figures gratitude is usually safe.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And the invitation’s standing open if you ever want to take it up.” He leans slightly on the _ever_ , and, held in the steady directness of his gaze, Maria finds it impossible to tell him she won’t.

So she just tells him, “I’ll keep that in mind.” Then drags her gaze to Sam and smiles. “Thanks. For the invitation to breakfast, and the run.”

“Same bat time, same bat channel tomorrow?”

“Same time next week,” she tells Sam, and gets a rueful shake of the head. “Thank you, gentlemen. Have a good day.”

Maria heads towards the open hangar doors where the early shift has just started assembling, and tells herself it’s just her imagination that Steve’s watching her go.

She doesn’t look back to check.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve pauses at the intersection of corridors.

A few steps ahead of him, Colonel Rhodes turns, instantly alert. “What is it?”

Steve holds up a hand. This late at night, the facility is pretty quiet, and Steve has no trouble hearing the noise again – a gasp, or maybe a whimper. A glance at Rhodey shows he hears nothing, but Steve’s sure the noise came from the direction of the training rooms.

He heads for them, Rhodey following behind.

The nearest door – leading into the sparring spaces – is just open, and as Steve puts one hand to it, he hears the noise again – a whimper, distinctly female, the sound of someone in agony. And the cadence – the timbre of it—

He shoves the door open, takes two step in and stops.

In the middle of the room, Maria is standing with her eyes blank, her fists clenched, her body rigid. The overhead lighting gleams off the tears streaking her cheeks, and the sight rips the breath from him worse than any asthma attack he ever had before the serum. Movement in the corner turns him – Wanda, her eyes still glowing scarlet with power.

Betrayal and suspicion leap, bloom. “What are you doing?”

The young woman looks at him, undaunted by his anger. “She asked to know the worst.”

_The laughter is bald and garish, the lights too bright and the darkness too full of shadows – and Peggy…_

_The war’s over, Steve…_

_Who am I? Without a war, without a bully to fight,_ _**what** _ _am I?_

_But there’s Peggy in his arms, dancing - Peggy who moves against him with an aggressiveness, a hunger that seems almost driven—_

That was the worst? To be held in the arms of a beautiful dame—?

Maria sways and staggers back like she’s taken a hit in the chest. Her whole body stiffens and she starts curling in on herself. And Steve starts forward, then stops. _She asked to know.._. Knowing Maria, Steve can only imagine the courage it took her to let Wanda into her brain, the courage it’s taking her to face her fears.

Does he have the right to take that away, even if it’s hurting her?

Caught between his wants and Maria’s choices, Steve hesitates.

Rhodey doesn’t: “What’s wrong with you? She’s in pain; end it now!”

Wanda looks at Steve, dark eyes full of too much knowledge. “She wanted to know.”

Then Rhodey goes to Maria, standing in front of her, reaching out. He calls her name.

When she chooses, she moves fast.

Steve didn’t know Rhodey had a gun on him, but he sees the way Maria shifts her weight. He sees the way her arm moves, the way her body moves into the older man – not a fighting move, a finisher’s one.

However fast Maria moves; Steve can move faster.

“End it!” He shouts at Wanda, even as he springs for Rhodey, pulling him out of the way of Maria and the weapon she’s wielding against the enemies in her head. He trusts Wanda to look after herself; Rhodey has fewer defences against Maria – this is _Maria_. So Steve uses his momentum and Rhodey’s to shove Maria off-balance and hopes it’s enough.

The sound of the gun firing is deafening – right next to his skull, unsilenced, in the cavern of the training space. It reverberates in Steve’s head, even as he pushes Rhodey down, even as Maria stumbles and turns her fall into a tucked roll, even as the glow of Wanda’s power being worked flares scarlet against the white walls of the room.

There’s no sucking noise ceased, like a leak being sealed, but there should be.

And Steve stares down the barrel of Maria’s gun, his hands out, waiting for her to see him, trusting Wanda’s done what he’s asked, hoping Maria will hesitate to shoot him down, even in her nightmares.

_Peggy didn’t._

She blinks, brilliant blue eyes beneath still-wet lashes, and her gaze focuses on him as she lowers the gun, confused. “Rogers?”

“Hey.” He doesn’t know what to say, how to say it. Words are hammering at his throat, too tight, too close, too dangerous to say here, now, ever. His hands curl by his sides, wanting nothing more than to grab her, pull her up, pull her close. “Are you okay?”

She frowns, slim brows lowering darkly over her eyes. “What are you--?” Then she stiffens, her head lifting to look up as Rhodey comes over. “Why did you stop it?”

Rhodey pauses, already reaching down to offer a hand up. “Because you were in pain!”

Steve sees the veil that falls down over Maria’s face – Commander Hill, no longer Maria – a careful distinction, a distancing. Does Rhodey see it, too? “I was working through it.”

“You were hurting,” Rhodey says, but Steve can already feel him on the defensive. “We were just looking out for you!”

“I’m a grown woman,” she says, climbing to her feet without touching the proffered hand, and her gaze takes in Rhodey and Steve. “I _can_ look after myself, you know.”

Rhodey looks to Steve, bewildered by the sharpness, not quite knowing what to say now that he’s not the hero. And Steve's not so sure that he has the words either, but he has to try. “We didn’t realise when we came in— The door wasn’t locked—”

He stops, because to keep going feels hypocritical. He’d have broken the door down the instant he realised Maria was in pain; as it was, he only hesitated because Wanda said she’d chosen this.

“And do you always try closed doors in case they open?”

Rhodey’s expression shifts, frowning, “Look, Maria, we heard a noise; we were trying to help—”

“And I should be grateful for help I didn’t ask for?”

“You should calm down—”

“Do I sound over-excited, Colonel Rhodes?” The icy tones aren’t directed at Steve, but he feels the bite of them all the same.

“We were worried—”

It’s not going to hold water – not with Maria, so ferociously independent, so carefully competent, so…Maria. Steve can almost see the arguments bursting out of her, and knows that anything Rhodey tries to say is only going to make the whole situation worse.

“Maria.” He waits for her to look at him. And notes the extra second it takes her to focus – longer than the usual razor-sharp attention she gives him. Whatever Maria’s protests, doing what she did took a toll on her. “We’re sorry we interrupted you. We thought—We thought you were hurt.”

“In the Avengers facility, in a training room, with one of your own teammates?”

“Yes.” Steve doesn’t look at Wanda; he’ll deal with the young woman and any betrayal she feels later. Right now, Maria is demanding answers. “It was wrong of us, and we shouldn’t have done it.”

He doesn’t have to look at Rhodey to know the other man is frowning at him, but this goes beyond solidarity. It’s something he needs to do – something he needs to give her, in a moment when she won’t accept anything else. And there’s a bittersweet taste in his mouth. Of all the times for his heart to convulse like a fist just closed around it – five slender and capable fingers ripping it, whole, out of his chest – it has to be now, here.

Maria looks at him, as though uncertain of whether or not to believe him, then she nods, brief and brisk – all the acknowledgement she’ll give the apology.

Sound and movement at the door of the training room – Vision, standing there, silent and observing.

“So, does anyone actually sleep around here?” Maria asks, one brow raised in sardonic query.

“I do,” Rhodey says. “I was on my way out when we came to see what the noise was. You’re heading home, then?”

Steve can hear the _I’ll walk you out_ behind Rhodey's offer. So, it appears, can Maria. “I have a sleeping stall, Colonel.”

“Great. Those are right on my way out. Let’s go.” And Rhodey takes her elbow like he has every right to escort her.

Steve sees the moment when she gives in – too much trouble to fight it; and suddenly wishes that he’d offered first. But maybe it’s for the best – he’s not sure he’d be able to stop at the door of the sleeping stall.

Vision’s gaze skims across Maria’s face, but when she lifts her chin as though in challenge, he simply inclines his head to her, grave as a salute to royalty. How much of JARVIS is still in there? How much of the being that Vision is now remembers Maria while she worked at Stark Industries? Steve wonders as Vision steps to Wanda’s side and they turn their gazes on Steve – two pairs of eyes that see more than he likes.

“She’s not fragile,” Wanda says, blunt with the boldness of youth, with the certainty of her powers. “She wanted to face her own fears.”

“And you let her.”

Wanda’s expression is not quite scornful. “There are few who would face the worst in themselves willing. Fewer still who can bear what they see. She did.”

There’s respect there – a peculiar kind of pride, as though Maria is a particularly adept student who has exceeded Wanda’s expectations. And Steve can only stare as Wanda heads out to get her own sleep, a little bemused by this unexpected sisterhood.

As Wanda’s footsteps fade, Vision watches Steve with ageless eyes. And Steve braces for the question he knows is coming. “Would you fight her demons for her, Steve Rogers?”

The laugh that escapes him feels bitter. He wishes it didn’t. “If she let me.”

“Would she let you?”

“No.” Steve half lifts his hand, then drops it – a gesture of frustration in the face of a helplessness that no serum in the universe can fix. “She wouldn’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Laimelde for the beta, especially while battling manflu.

Maria is reviewing a mission briefing in one of the ‘viewing lounges’ above the sparring courts when Vision finds her.

Below them, in the court, Wanda is learning how to concentrate her telekinesis while under close physical attack, while Steve is learning new ways to get around an opponent who can deflect anything he throws at her before it makes contact.

She’s only been watching the last five minutes or so, but it seems pretty even at this point, although Steve is looking harried through the fierce concentration, and Wanda looks like she might be struggling. But they’re learning about each other and themselves: how the other one fights in close quarters, how they think under pressure, how to co-ordinate and co-operate and not conflict – important things to know when planning to go into battle as a team.

“Commander Hill.”

“Vision.” She glances up at him, keeping her face careful and neutral. “How can I help you?”

“I have a question which I believe might be considered an impertinence.”

Maria sits back in her chair, already knowing where this conversation is headed. She saw it coming days ago – pretty much since the night Steve and Rhodey found her allowing Wanda to play games with her brain.

_Blood and tears and corpses, as far as the eye can see – an army who faced the gods and were struck down for their daring._

“You want to know why I’m still angry with Rhodey.”

“And Captain Rogers.”

She winces a little. She’s not as angry with Steve; he might have interrupted, but at least he didn’t try to argue that she shouldn’t have done what she did. Rhodey tried to defend himself the next morning, and while Maria knows he meant well, she’s still not over the high-handedness of his intervention.

“It’s complicated.” It’s a hedge, and she knows it.

So does Vision. “Most human things are, so I am given to understand.”

Maria doesn’t admit to anyone that she finds him unnerving – an unsettling mix of innocence and power, and something _more_. The infinity stone? Maybe. JARVIS’ consciousness and speech patterns? Possibly. A psychotic sentinel program that carries Tony Stark’s overprotective streak like a chip on the shoulder? Yeah, definitely that.

And speaking of over-protective chips on shoulders…

“Colonel Rhodes feels he has the right to keep me from risking myself.”

“You disagree.”

“If only it were that easy. I can’t afford Colonel Rhodes’ protective instincts, Vision, not when I have a job to do.”

She sees the incomprehension in his expression and wonders if she can even explain it to someone who bears so many of Tony Stark’s fingerprints. Rhodey and Tony are buddies for a lot of reasons and those reasons run deep. “It was a training room, with one of his team-mates. And Wanda told them it was my choice.”

“Yet you were in pain.”

“And their right to not see me in pain overrides my right to pick my battles?” Maria waits a beat. “Would they have stopped Sam from trying to face his worst fears?”

“That is different,” Vision begins, then pauses. “Ah.”

The good thing about dealing with Vision is that he has a lot of information at his command as well as all of JARVIS’ memory. And while JARVIS wasn’t programmed to draw conclusions about the consequences of human behaviour and make judgements, Ultron was. As the blend of both, Vision can see what Maria’s laying out before him.

“You are saying that caring and being cared about is a liability for women.”

“For women in my position in particular.”

The stairwell from the sparring floor below vibrates with the resonance of footsteps. A moment later Wanda and Steve come into view. They move without any particular haste, but Wanda’s expression indicates they heard at least the last part of the conversation, and there’s a tension in Steve’s face that curls uneasy tendrils about Maria’s chest.

Maria hopes her expression doesn’t show it. While Rhodey was outspoken about his displeasure at Maria putting herself in a position to be hurt, Steve’s stood back and disapproved. Or maybe not disapproved, he just hasn’t said anything about the incident, and there’s a reticence when he speaks to her, something new that she can’t quite identify.

“That’s a very cynical view,” Steve says. It’s not quite censure, but it sparks something in Maria. Given who he is, who he’s known, he has no right to judge her.

“Would Peggy have been the Director of SHIELD as your wife, Steve?”

He tenses, surprised by her change of topic, wounded at the implication. “Of course!”

“After the war, with every man coming home and being given the jobs that the women had held down? When there’s a man for her to look after – and Captain America no less? Would she be allowed to be what she was when she’s Captain America’s wife, mother of his children, mainstay of his home?”

Maria pauses, giving herself that moment even as she gives him a second to hurt. She carefully swallows the lump in her throat, at the thought of a woman loved by Steve Rogers. Her emotions are not important in this moment, only that he understands why she needed him and Rhodey to trust her, and what it entails to be a woman where she is, doing what she does.

“You’re saying that I— No.” He’s shaking his head, gaze troubled. “I wouldn’t have wanted that of Peggy.”

“Would you get a choice? Would she? As the wife of one of America’s icons, would she be allowed to do more than ‘help’ from the shadows? Would she have been involved with the SSR as an agent, or just an analyst sitting in the office while less qualified, less capable, more _male_ agents went out and did the work? She has a family – or she should. She has a husband to look after, children to care for.”

Steve is frowning. “But Peggy eventually married, had children.”

“ _Eventually._ After she’d proven herself, after she’d started SHIELD.” Maria takes a deep breath, but she’s come this far, she has to take it to the bitter end. “And her husband wasn’t Captain America.”

It’s not a nice move; gut him on the way through and hamstring him on the way back. But she owes him the understanding of why she’s angry. She couldn’t make Rhodey understand it – his view was too entrenched, too fixed after forty years of life, twenty of them spent in the Air Force. Maybe Steve will see it better.

“I wouldn’t have stood – I wouldn’t stand in the way of anything my...my wife wanted to do.”

“No,” she acknowledges the plea within the statement. “You wouldn’t. But even as a hero, you can only do so much, Steve. And you’re an icon – everything that men aspire to be – both then and now. You can’t be outdone by your wife – subordinate to her – because that’s too challenging, if not for you, then for other men. A man should lead and his wife should follow. Otherwise she wears the pants and he’s emasculated.”

“That was seventy years ago. It doesn’t apply today.”

“Doesn’t it? Women are still considered lesser, Steve.”

“I don’t see you as lesser.”

“No?” She smiles, somewhat grimly. “Then you’re an exception. Pepper has to deal with corporate shits who say – quite openly – that she must be really something in bed since she has Stark so firmly by the balls. Her intelligence, her business sense, her capability with people – none of that is worth noticing: only that she’s fucking a man with power.”

She half expects to be called on her crudeness, but his expression sharpens, focuses. “Did people say that of you?”

“Some of them said worse – and in an organisation started by a woman who understood what it was to be accused of being where she was because she dated the right man.” Maria meets his gaze without flinching. “You’re free to love whomever you please, Steve, and you can still do what you do and nobody will gainsay you. But Peggy and Natasha and Wanda and I, we have to negotiate our relationships with men who can accept and not feel threatened by us – with men who can let us do what we can and be who we are without limiting us so he can feel better about himself.”

“And that’s why you’re angry at Rhodey and me.”

“Yes.” Then, because she owes him the honesty, she adds, “More at Rhodey than you. He’s as stubborn as Tony when he gets an idea in his head.”

Steve smiles, but it feels a little broken. And Maria wishes she had it in her to soothe the sharp edges away, but that’s not her nature, not who she is. She can offer him truth, but not comfort. Instead she looks at Vision, who asked the original question, who’s been sitting aside, watching and considering and processing everything she’s said. “Does that help you understand?”

“Yes. It was very...informative.”

He glances at Wanda, and something passes between them. Maria isn’t going to ask; she doesn’t need to know about the connection those two have forged and it’s none of her business unless it spills over into the team.

Then Vision stands. “Thank you, Commander. I appreciate your honesty.”

Wanda turns as he passes her, then pauses and glances at Maria before her gaze flicks to Steve in silent question. Maria shakes her head; she’s not afraid to face him alone.

Except where she is.

_Carnage. There’s no other word for it. Carnage by conquerers who turn to look at her with eyes power-mad and glory-drunk. And she’s the last one standing between them and a world they will rule – no exceptions, no holdouts._

_They were heroes once. Loved and worshipped and cheered and adored. But love became jealousy, and worship became fear, and the cheers and adoration became whispers and worries as power and might became the standard of strength._

_Now, they’re monsters._

Steve stays where he is until their foosteps have faded into the distant murmur of the facility. And Maria waits for whatever judgement is about to be passed.

“I’m sorry about the other night.”

Her breath catches.

 _It takes two hands to steady the gun she’s pointing at him –_ don’t make me do this _– but fear and grief have no place here: only resolve._

_“This isn’t what you were made to be.”_

_“No,” he agrees as he hefts the shield, prepared to block her shots before striking her down. “This is what I am.”_

Maria shakes off the lingering echoes of her nightmare – protection turned to dominion – and forces her voice to calm. “You already apologised.”

“Yes. But...I didn’t know why it mattered.”

“Now you do.”

Steve nods, and Maria expects him to leave. But he studies her face for a long moment in which she’s brutally conscious of her skin stretched tight and tense across muscle and bone, of her heart slamming against her ribs in a drumming thunder.

“If I do it again – if I cross your lines – will you tell me?”

She exhales the shiver that threatens to wrack her. “Yes,” she says, holding herself very still. “I’ll tell you.”

“Thank you.” He seems to want to say something else, but just shakes his head and walks away.

And Maria stares blindly down at the mission briefing until she’s sure he’s gone. Then she opens her hands to regard the little white crescents her nails have dug into her palms.

She’s always known care and caring would be a vulnerability for her.

She just hoped Steve Rogers wouldn’t be her weakness.


	4. Chapter 4

It is a truth universally acknowledged that with great battles come great mess.

Steve feels a little bad for leaving someone else with the clean-up. He feels rather worse when Maria looks up at him, as though surprised to find him pacing her. “Captain?”

“We can’t do anything to help things along?”

Maria blinks and pauses in her stride. “Unless you know how to reprogram one of Stark’s bots to do finework?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then no, you can’t do anything to help things along.” Her expression softens a moment before she continues on past him. “You did the job, Steve. We’ll handle tidying up. See you back at base.”

Steve checks in on his team as he crosses the field towards the Quinjet. Rhodey and Sam are doing a last aerial sweep, Natasha’s already at the Quinjet, and Vision and Wanda are...reprogramming one of Stark’s bots.

“We won’t be long, Captain,” Vision says. “This adjustment is not complicated.” Steve doubts that Vision’s idea of ‘complicated’ matches his, but doesn’t comment on this.

As he stands at the quinjet ramp, Steve finds himself scanning the field.

She’s speaking with a local civil representative and listening to the damage assessment bring transmitted to her by Sam and Rhodey, her head tilted, one hand at her earpiece as she listens to the reports being brought in. There’s tension in her shoulders and he’s pretty sure she’s frowning from the angle of her head, but she's considering, working out the solutions, doing the job that needs doing.

She's everything he wants, and nothing he can have.

He’s growing accustomed to the weight beneath his breastbone.

It’s been a difficult few weeks.

“So,” Natasha says from the hold behind him. “Sam and I are going out partying. There’s some great clubs in Chonqing.”

Steve turns around and blinks. Nat’s changed into civvies – sleek leggings and a knitted shawl kind of thing under a leather jacket. “This wasn’t party enough for you?”

“I’d like to dance with someone who isn’t trying to eviscerate me. Call it sentimental.”

Footsteps on the ramp – Sam jogging up, the Falcon pack still on his back. “Give me five and I swear we’re outta here—”

Steve glances back at Maria, just in time to see Rhodey tip her a casual salute before flying off.

“Steve?” Natasha’s watching him, “You need to either make a move or stop mooning over her.”

“I don’t ‘moon’.”

“Tell that to your expression.”

It’s not his expression that needs reining in – it’s the part of him that wants what he can’t have: a woman who can’t afford to love him.

_Would Peggy have been the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D as your wife?_

For the last three years since he came out of the ice, most people have sidestepped around the topic of Peggy and the love Steve lost. _The war’s over, Steve. We can go home._ Since Maria’s explanation, Steve’s come to realise that, until Maria, nobody mentioned how much Peggy gained by losing him. Even if he didn’t realise it then, his subconscious did, and recognised it would have been his worst nightmare – to not only be a soldier without a fight, but to be a man who could only cripple the ambitions of the woman he loved.

Across the field, Specialist Klein is bringing Maria an assessment of the damage. She only glances at him as she takes it, but Klein’s eyes remain on her face as he gives the report, and his posture is both ingratiating and respectful.

Peggy found a man she could love and be loved by without losing who she wanted to be to social expectation. And that was sixty years ago. Someday, Maria will find someone who won’t cast long shadows on her ambitions, and Steve will have to watch.

_We have to negotiate our relationships with men who can accept and not feel threatened by us._

Natasha wheels a motorcycle down the ramp and pauses beside him.

“You never suggested Maria,” he says. “Was that because you knew I’d be nothing but trouble for her?”

“I never suggested Maria because I didn’t think she’d be interested.”

The pain isn’t physical, but it stabs nevertheless. “So I’m not her type.”

“It was more that she didn’t have space or time for a guy.”

“So nothing’s changed, then.”

“Actually,” Natasha is saying beside him, “something _has_ changed, Steve. You have.”

He winces. “For all the good that does. She can’t afford my interest.”

“Shouldn’t she get to decide that?” The edge in Natasha’s voice makes him face her. “You know, Steve, it’s not unusual for guys to want things for the women they love that the women they love don’t actually want. But you need to get over it and deal with what she _does_ want.”

 _Ouch_. Trust Natasha not to sugar-coat it.

Of course, Steve’s cluey enough to realise it’s not all about him. Some of it, yes, but not all. And he’s got enough self-preservation to know that if he mentions Bruce, he’ll deserve everything Natasha dishes out to him. So he settles for saying, “I don’t want things to get…awkward. Or for her to feel pressured.”

Natasha snorts. “Aw, how cute. Captain America is scared of having feelings for someone who might not return them.”

“I’m not scared.” The look Natasha gives him is cynical. “I’m not.”

“Then stop making excuses. If you want Maria you could at least let her know. Right now, she doesn’t even know there’s a second option, so how can she choose it?”

“And if she doesn’t—?”

“Then you know, and you can go easy on your bruises.”

“Like you did?”

She doesn’t break eye contact as she kicks the motorcycle into life, but her expression is smooth and blank; he’s trespassed into forbidden territory. “As I said.”

“Right, we ready to go? You coming, Steve?” Sam saunters down the ramp in jeans and a jacket.

“No, not this time.”

Natasha leans towards Sam like she’s imparting a secret. “He’s going to brood over Maria.”

Steve glares at her, for all the good it does. “Do you mind?”

Sam snorts. “You could just ask her.”

“He can’t,” Natasha interrupts before Steve can say, ‘ _It’s not that easy._ ’ “He’s worried she can’t handle the pressure and expectation of being the girlfriend of Captain America.”

“Well, if Hill can’t handle it, then you might as well throw in the towel – or get used to switch-hitting.” Sam looks at Steve. “You have a type, Steve. Nothing wrong with that, except your type is a woman who knows what she wants and is gonna have to fight a bunch of expectations to get it anyway. And the kicker is that you’re always gonna be high-risk for your type. So you can choose it, or you can lose it.”

“And _that’s_ where you have your money?”

“Hey, if I was putting money down, I’d have it on you.” Sam grins. “Honestly, though, if you don’t make a move, _I_ just might.”

Steve shakes his head. “Go. And don’t make me have to post bail.”

“Well, that’s no fun,” Natasha says as Sam climbs on behind her.

“Oh,” Sam adds as Natasha revs the motorcycle, “Protip: Maria’s still skipping lunches. So if you ambush her with food, even if she isn’t happy to see you, she’ll pretend because she’s hungry.”

They roar off in a trail of dust and fumes before he can formulate a retort.

 _With friends like these..._ Steve sighs to himself and calls Vision. “Got an ETA?”

“We are coming now.”

They rise over the battlefield, close but not touching, a visible unit although not together – not yet, so far as Steve can tell.

It takes Steve a few moments to realise his gaze has shifted from the duo flying over to look at Maria. She’s handing the tablet back to Klein, who hugs it to his chest and nods emphatically at her words before he catches sight of Steve standing by the Quinjet and lifts a hand in a friendly wave.

Maria looks up at Klein's gesture and Steve can’t quite see it, but he’d like to think she smiles at him, however briefly, before she turns back to the job at hand.

No, she doesn’t have any idea that there’s multiple choice.

Should Steve change that? Does he have the right to throw that into the mix?

Wanda and Vision land a few yards away. “Colonel Rhodes will be taking the long way home,” Wanda tells Steve as she goes up the ramp. “We don’t wait for him.”

Vision’s eyes watch her as she vanishes into the Quinjet. It’s not an alliance Steve would ever have expected: the android and the ‘witch’. But Wanda’s used to having the constant support of someone there, never far away, always close, and Vision reaches out to her without wariness, with nothing to fear, nothing hide from a woman who can strip a man’s brain down to his most intimate thought.

He glances over at the figure striding through the mess, people trailing her as she issues orders left and right, managing damage.

Is that what she’d do with Steve and his feelings – manage him, like a destruction she can’t prevent?

Steve doesn’t know. He’s scared of knowing.

_I’m not scared._

“You have Commander Hill on your mind.”

Steve doesn’t question that Vision sees what he feels for Maria, but he wonders if he can believe that the android understands something as complicated and variable as human emotions. Right now, Steve doesn’t know if _he_ quite understands his feelings.

“Yeah.” Steve exhales and turns to go up the ramp. “And multiple choice.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to **andveryginger** and **Laimelde** for the betas and the handholding!

At the end of a long day, there are people Maria doesn’t want to see.

Steve is not quite the top of the list, but he comes pretty close. Especially when he’s leaning against his motorcycle in jeans and a leather jacket over a t-shirt that fits him rather too nicely across the chest. It’s been a long day, and Maria isn’t up to keeping things professional in her head as well as in their interactions.

Still, she keeps walking towards him – and her car – and wonders what he thought of when he was on his way out and why it couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

“Captain.”

“Maria.” He tucks his phone away. “Did you have plans for dinner?”

Okay, so, not work-related.

 _Not with you._ The words tremble on her lips before she bites them back. There are things she can’t control – his innate courtesy, the job they have to do, her own treacherous heart – but there are things she can. Avoiding being outright rude is one of them, even if it might protect her from Steve Rogers.

“Yes,” she says, without elaboration.

“Take-out?”

Maria has lied to Steve before, in some cases, quite bare-faced. It’s not difficult when it’s about Coulson, her work with Fury, and her past, so why is it impossible when it’s a _de facto_ invitation to dinner?

“You know,” he says when she hesitates too long, “there’s a little Japanese place on the other side of the interstate – behind the Walgreens and the CVS – they do a really good _tonkotsu ramen_ – the pork broth noodles?”

“Does Captain America get a discount?”

“He might if he turned up there,” he says, a faint smile tilting his mouth. “But, no. They laugh at my attempts at chopsticks and my attempts at Japanese, though, which is fair because both are terrible. And I figured you could do with a laugh.”

He makes it sound appealing, and she could do with a laugh. But, “I can’t.”

Steve looks at her, his eyes clear and steady even in the last light of day. “Okay. Then I guess I need to have this talk here. I’ve thought about what you said about Peggy.”

And, that simply, Maria’s stomach feels like a helicarrier just landed on it. Since that afternoon, he’s been polite, but distant. She can’t blame him, really – she threw what he’d lost in his face and pointed out the impossibility of him keeping it, and that had to hurt.

“I may have been…a little blunt.” She’s fretted about that conversation the last couple of weeks – pushed it away and tried not to think about it, and wondered if she should have rephrased it differently, if there was any other way she could have made her point.

“You were right. I would have been a liability for Peggy. And that’s…” He looks away, out across the evening fields. “That’s a difficult thing for a man to hear.”

 _I’m sorry,_ hovers on her lips. If it were true, she’d utter it, but it’s a meaningless apology because she needed him to understand and she doesn’t owe him anything for the truth.

“It’s harder,” Steve says after a moment’s pause, “because Sam says I have a type – a woman in command. And such a woman has a lot of reasons to keep me at arm’s length. Good reasons – if she’s even attracted to me, which…I’m not sure she is. But if she is interested I’m trying to find a reason she might give me a chance.”

It takes Maria a moment to parse what he’s saying with the distraction of his eyes fixed on her face. It takes her another moment to actually comprehend what he’s saying without actually saying. And when she does make all the connections—

“Those tables turned _fast_ ,” she blurts.

“Well, if I’d taken it slowly, would you still be here, or would you be running?”

“I could run away now.” And she wants to – oh, God, does she ever want to.

Her brain isn’t working properly. She can’t _think_ with him standing there, having this discussion as casually as they’ve tossed around battle plans and courses of action, as casually as they’ve discussed politics and philosophy. As though this isn’t something impossible and unthinkable and ridiculous – _inconceivable_ , declares an imp in her mind.

“Yes. But you won’t. You stand and face things – that’s who you are. Whether it’s dealing with a superhero boyband with their token girl member,” the glint of humour in his eyes mitigates the droll delivery, “or bringing down S.H.I.E.L.D to deny HYDRA its continued use, or fighting Stark’s murderbots in bare feet with only a gun to hand… You don’t turn tail and run.”

“So you’ve got me all worked out. Congratulations.” The flippancy helps, because she’s nothing he needs, nothing he should want: too much bitch, not enough princess. “Am I now supposed to just fall into your arms?”

“I wouldn’t mind it,” Steve says lightly. “But I’d just take you to medical, because swooning isn’t you. And I don’t expect—We’re friends, aren’t we?” He waits for her nod before continuing. “Then that’s what we are. I can’t keep from…from caring, but I can make choices that don’t impede yours. And I can let you know that this…that _love_ is an option for you, too.”

_We have to negotiate our relationships with men who can respect us…_

“The way it was for Peggy?”

“Yes, I have a type,” he says, and his voice is steady. “But you’re not a replacement for her, Maria, any more than I’d be replacing anyone you’ve loved in your past if you cared about me.”

Laughter bubbles up inside her, dark and awful. _If?_ She stifles it; he wouldn’t understand. Instead she exhales, slow and measured, and meets his gaze. Fair is fair; he should know what he’s facing.

“The problem,” she says quietly, “isn’t caring.”

“It’s that I’m Captain America.”

“Yes. But…not like it was for Peggy.” Her stomach is a pit, her heartbeat is a drum, and her palms are sweaty around her keys. “You’re a hero, and a weapon, Steve. My job involves firing on you when the choice is between you and the rest of the world, and lying to you about my loyalties if necessary. I can’t afford your hurt feelings when I don’t pander to your ego.”

“I’m not Tony.”

“You’re still male.”

“I can accept who you are – who you need to be, Maria. Or at least I can try – and you can tell me when I’ve gone overboard. And, as to loyalties...I already know you’re loyal first to the people of this planet – the ones who don’t have superpowers or technology or the ability to defend themselves against the extranormal – and you’ll use or sacrifice anything and anyone to keep them safe.”

That simply, he renders her speechless. Nobody has ever understood that – or, at least, nobody has ever expressed it quite so succinctly. Nick assumed it, Phil alluded to it a couple of times, and Pepper said she understood but Maria wasn’t convinced.

Why? _Why_ would the universe do this to her?

“I can’t—”

“We’re actually having this conversation, Maria, so we’re already involved.” His gaze holds her as fiercely as a grip; the intensity of it feels as though it could leave marks on her skin. “And it sounds like the question is not whether we care about each other, but how much you’ll let me care, in public and in private.”

“You’re presuming a lot.”

“Maybe I am. But would I get anywhere being polite?”

They both know the answer to that.

“And you’d let me care...?”

“As much as you’re willing and able. Everything you have for me. And I’d ask the same rights in return.”

Maria exhales, and looks away. It would be so tempting to shut him out – close the door on him and her feelings, not chance falling in love with Steve Rogers, Captain America, with everything it entails: the risk of her job, the risk of her reputation, the risk of making a mistake over emotions that the world can’t afford.

_This is what I am._

And this is who she is.

Maria takes a deep breath. “ _Tonkotsu_ ramen and bad Japanese?”

Steve’s smile is a thing of slow and triumphant beauty. “With the bonus of watching me navigate noodles with chopsticks.”

“Put like that, how could I possibly resist?”

They stand there, smiling at each other like idiots.

“You know,” Steve says after a moment, “I wish you’d said yes to the Japanese earlier.”

Maria blinks. That was not what she was expecting. “Why?”

“Because I’d really like to kiss you right now. But we’re in the parking lot at work and...”

“Bad idea.”

“Very bad.”

“Maybe later.”

“Is that a promise?”

Maria starts around him and his bike, grinning. They’re neither of them great at flirting, but that’s okay. “Think of it as incentive,” she tells him, pulling open her car door. And pauses as one more thing nags at her. “Steve?” He looks over at her, sudden tension in the set of his shoulders as he hefts his helmet. “This... I’m not...normal by most people’s standards. So this— _we_ aren’t ever going to be anything approaching normal.”

Steve relaxes, just slightly, and the realisation of just how much of a victory this is for him cups Maria’s heart, like a hand curving around something unexpected and precious.

“I’m good with that,” he tells her. “I like you weird.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a fine romance with no kisses! (Apologies to those of you who were hoping for the explicit version!)
> 
> So. Pretty much exactly three years ago this week I went to watch the Avengers movie. And my opinion on it was *handwobble* - it was good, yeah, but I wasn't as excited about it as others were. It was an enjoyable movie, but I didn't have the OMG GIVE IT TO ME NOW reaction that others did. However, there was this one character that interested me whom nobody else in the fandom seemed to be noticing. All my femme-friendly friends were fawning over Natasha, who was admittedly cool, but she just didn't hit me in the feels.
> 
> And so I went back to watch the movie a second time pretty much just to watch Agent Hill drive a jeep backwards while firing at another jeep driven by a mind-controlled colleague/friend in order to keep a weapon of unimaginable power falling into the wrong hands. And thought, "Yep, I really like this woman." Then, several scenes later, I saw her give Captain America the once-over. And my internal shipper went, "HOMG GIVE THIS TO ME NOW."
> 
> Posted my first Maria/Steve fic in August 2012, back when I could count the number of 'Captain Hill' fics on my fingers and toes and not use them all. Never looked back. :)
> 
> It's been a highly enjoyable three years (even if the first two before CA: TWS came out were pretty slow).
> 
> Happy "Captain Hill" week!


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